As California's housing crisis has worsened, California has developed a three-part legal solution for addressing the crisis:

Approve: Housing Accountability & ADUs

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The Housing Accountability Act

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The RHNA and Housing Element process would be meaningless if localities were allowed to disregard their own plans and reject zoning-compliant projects—for example, when faced with public opposition to a particular development application. The Housing Accountability Act (HAA) keeps cities on track by requiring them to approve most zoning-compliant housing development projects.

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The HAA first became law in the 1980s, but has been significantly expanded in recent years. The law generally requires a city to approve a housing development project unless the project does not comply with objective zoning standards in place at the time of the application. The law's focus on objective factors is critical, because it prevents cities from applying arbitrary or subjective standards as a pretext for rejecting a zoning-compliant project. The law requires cities to err on the side of approving a project if the evidence “would allow a reasonable person to conclude” that the project met the relevant standards. That means that, in order to reject a zoning-compliant project, a city must show that no reasonable person could find that the project was out of compliance with zoning.

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The law also includes strict timing requirements that prevent cities from unreasonably delaying projects.  Cities are required to make a written determination about whether a project complies with zoning standards within 30 to 60 days from the date of the application.  If a city misses this deadline, the project is deemed to be compliant.

For housing developments intended to provide units affordable to lower-income families, there are even more significant limits.  Cities must approve such a project without regard for whether it meets the objective zoning standards mentioned above, unless the jurisdiction has already met its RHNA goals in all of the relevant income categories for the current planning period, or one of a small number of narrow exceptions applies. Cities are also not permitted to condition such a project’s approval in a way that makes it infeasible to develop affordable housing—for example, by requiring the use of unnecessarily expensive construction materials or techniques.

In recent years, in response to the worsening housing crisis, the Legislature has made it much more risky for cities to violate the HAA. Today, pro-housing organizations like Californians for Homeownership are automatically entitled to sue to enforce the law and to recover their attorneys' fees if successful. The law also includes special litigation procedures that speed the process and make the lawsuit both costly and difficult to win for a non-compliant city. In certain cases when a city has willfully violated the law, a court will impose fines that start at $10,000 per proposed housing unit. 

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Accessory Dwelling Units

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An accessory dwelling units (ADU) or 'in-law unit' is a housing unit built in or on the same lot as an existing single-family home, or through the conversion of an accessory structure like a garage. Because ADUs have the potential to provide a significant amount of additional housing at a relatively low cost, they provide an important tool for addressing the housing crisis.  ADUs are also often cited by cities as sources for affordable housing development sites during the RHNA and Housing Element planning process. 

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In 2016 and 2017, the California Legislature passed a series of reforms that require cities to permit ADUs on most single-family lots.  In 2019, following widespread obstruction and non-compliance by California's cities, the Legislature again overhauled state ADU law.  The new law creates uniform statewide rules for the approval of ADUs, allowing cities to adopt very limited local ADU standards.

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To learn more about the new ADU laws, click here.

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